


I'll see you in a minute

by LuWrites



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A little bit of angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame spoilers, Bucky receiving better treatment, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Natasha deserved better, Not much but enough, Steve Rogers Feels, i had to make things right for her somehow, sorry idk how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 15:07:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18625717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuWrites/pseuds/LuWrites
Summary: Natasha told him they would see each other in a minute. Steve will make that happen.





	I'll see you in a minute

**Author's Note:**

> Hey people!!
> 
> So after Avengers: Endgame hype died down and I was able to make a proper analysis of it, I noticed some serious issues with that "ending". The level of disrepect w Steve's character and story was the biggest one for me, I mean honestly that story arc ending was utter bullshit. Those plotholes and lack of proper explanations were also a diservice w the fandom -.-
> 
> And although I understood Nat's sacrifice , that shit hurted too much and babegirl deserved better. I cant cope w her death, I cant cope w the destruction of my ship, I cant cope w Stucky friendship being ignored and boiling down to that shitty goodbye. So I fixed some of it cause I'm in complete and utter denial. 
> 
> The story ended up bigger than I intended, what was supposed to be a small oneshot turned into this freaking extensive monster. But hopefully its good enough.
> 
> English its not my first language , i tried my best , but sorry for any mistakes !
> 
> Hope you guys like it.
> 
> Enjoy ;)

\- Did she had family?

\- Yeah. Us. – Steve answered flatly.

Steve most of all _knew_ that because the Avengers are the only family he ever had too. Back in the day, he had Bucky even when he had nothing else but then he lost Bucky and went into the ice for almost 70 years; when he woke up once again he had nothing left for him. Until Steve joined that dysfunctional team of superheroes. However, all the others went theirs separate ways after the mission was done to live their lives, except him and Natasha.

She became his constant in life straightaway. He got to know her – at least as much as she allowed him to –, and work with her, together they learned how to function around each other and to be in familiar terms with each other. And when Steve needed the most, she stayed by his side and fought alongside him. She _trusted_ in him. Natasha was the one to become his family before anyone else in the team.

 _Now she’s gone_.

He thought bitterly. It wasn’t fair and he couldn’t bring himself to truly believed she was gone. First he lost Bucky, then he lost Peggy and then lost Bucky two more times, now Natasha was gone too. It was just too much for Steve. But he has to play pretend and lead the team, for the family they lost and all the others he must pretend to be strong and sure and determined. They have to finish the mission _for her_. Steve would not let her sacrifice to be in vain, not after everything she fought to clean the red in her ledger.

And finish the mission they did. They fought the battle of their lives and won it. However, as Steve always knew, the price they payed for the victory had been too high, Natasha and Tony’s sacrifices were the highest price he would ever had to pay for humanity safety and freedom. Steve loved them too much to just accept their deaths. Yes, it had been worth to see Bucky, Wanda, Sam and all the others alive and well again, but he could not shake the awful feeling of emptiness off his chest.

_Because she’s gone. Natasha was truly gone._

Steve wasn’t feeling like a victor, he wasn’t feeling the satisfaction of saving the whole freaking universe. He was feeling defeated, an utter failure. Just like he did all those years ago when he didn’t save Bucky in that train. Because the truth was, Bucky and Natasha mean the _world_ to Steve and he could not possibly function without them in it. He loves and admires Tony, Thor, Sam, Wanda and all the others, he truly does but without Natasha or Bucky life simply lost its meaning.

That’s why he decides to take the stones back alone. He would find a way to bring her back; he needed to find a way. Steve has seen too many things that seemed to be impossible happen again and again, so maybe Thor was right and there was a way to revert it, and Steve would find it. Because _that_ could not be the end for her, for them. He refused to accept that he had being stupid enough to lose her before realizing all that she truly meant to him. He had lost his chance with Peggy, he wouldn’t repeat it with Natasha.

Whatever it takes but he would bring Natasha home.

So Steve planned, while waiting for the machine to be fix and spending quality time with his friends, he planned how he would deliver the stones back and what he would do to bring her back. Steve also sat down with Pepper to say how sorry he was, how _he_ should have been the one to lay down his life for them. He talked with Peter as well; he couldn’t leave without giving the boy some sort of guidance to deal with the loss and to move on.

He was being selfish he knew, leaving the team without its leader, abandoning his friends and family after such heavy loss. But Steve knew no bounds when it came to Bucky and Natasha, he would do anything for them even if it was ignoring his moral compass and principles. Besides, the team was much bigger now, Steve trusted them to do the right things; just like he was sure they would be fine without the three of them. They have Carol Danvers now after all, she would be a fine captain for the team.

When the day to go back came, Steve tried not to do it a “goodbye” event otherwise the others would notice something was off. He was a terrible liar. However, he did linger a second too long hugging Wanda and assuring Sam that everything would be all right. Bucky knew better though, because Steve couldn’t go in that mission without saying a word about it to his best friend and all it took was one look for Steve to spill his guts at Bucky’s feet. Also he needed Bucky’s approval, he needed to be sure Bucky would be okay where he was, because if he wouldn’t Steve would bring him along in the blink of an eye.

Bucky had Sam and Wanda now so he would be okay for the time being, he was in good hands; they knew that wasn’t a goodbye, they would be with each other till the end of the line as promised time and time again. So Steve stepped into that platform determined, nothing else attaching him to that place and time; and before he made the jump, he silently promised to make things right. To make Tony’s sacrifice truly worth it.

First Steve returned the reality stone. It was a little bit tricky to return the Aether to Jane Foster’s body, he almost got caught and almost run into Thor, but everything end up alright. Unfortunately, he also had to return Mjolnir even though he had _really_ liked to wield and use it; he had to leave it behind. Then he proceed to return the power stone to the place where Peter Quill had found it in the first place. Back to 2012 again, Steve returned Loki’s scepter to the time before his rundown with his past self and then the Tesseract.

Steve had a mind to approach Natasha when he caught a glimpse of red hair and a catsuit, explain everything to her, somehow convince her to join him in the rest of his mission and then come back home with him. But he was able to refrain himself, turn back and go to the Sanctum. If he was going to get a past Natasha it had to be the Natasha he had come to love, the Natasha who knew and understood him, the Natasha who saved the world alongside him a bunch of times, the Natasha who spent a couple years on the run with him, _for him_. And more important, the Natasha who didn’t want to leave him alone in one of his saddest days.

When Steve returned the time stone to the Ancient One’s hands, she looked at him as if she knew what he was planning to do and what would be the outcome but before he could ask anything all she said was:

\- Perhaps you will succeed with your plan. Or perhaps not. Good luck, Captain Rogers.

To say that he was baffled was an understatement. Steve wanted to ask more, so much more, but he didn’t had the time. Vormir was his next stop, the place where Natasha had sacrificed herself.

_Will I found her body or did it vanished by some magic?_

He thought as soon as his feet touched the ground of the glooming planet. They hadn’t made a funeral nor a ceremony to her in part because they didn’t have her body, therefore her death felt more abstract than Tony’s but in part because Clint and him refused to let her death sink in properly. Now that he was in that planet, Steve wasn’t sure if he wishes to find her body or not; he wasn’t sure if he could look upon her broken, lifeless body and not shatter apart.

_“There’s worse ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?”_

Natasha’s voice echoed in his mind, almost as a whisper in the wind, and he remembered clearly of her look of acceptance in sacrificing themselves for a greater good. Maybe that was her destiny all along, maybe that was the only way for her to clean her ledger. Steve wouldn’t accept that though, after everything she suffered and had done to redeem herself she deserved better.

His musings came to a stop when he finished the climbing and was greeted by Johann Schmidt himself.

\- Steven Rogers, son of Sarah. – he said while levitating a few feets away.

\- So here’s where you went to? – Steve asked looking at the man who used to be the Red Skull with hatred.

\- I could not possess the space stone so it banished me here as punishment. – He answered getting closer. – Now, I only guide others to another treasure I cannot possess. A treasure you already have.

Steve sighed, there was no point in discuss or fight with whatever Schmidt had turned into, what had been done was done, no changing those long time ago facts. He needed to focus on Natasha. So he took out the soul stone and held it to Schmidt to see it.

\- I came to return it to where it belongs. – He said holding it out for him to take but Schmidt didn’t. – We don’t need anymore.

\- You possess it without any sacrifice made. – Schmidt said nonchalantly as if it was an obvious thing.

\- I did. – Steve said through greeted teeth. – She died for this.

Schmidt just stared at him unconcerned. Steve didn’t know if he didn’t remembered of past events or if he was just some sort of spectral robot or what but it certainly was innerving. The spectral form then turned back and levitate away, without any other option Steve followed it till they reached the end of the cliff.

_It was here where she died to save us all._

He thought while unwittingly walking to the edge of the cliff, and then he impulsively looked down waiting to see the worse image he would ever see; deep down wishing for the pain, he deserved it for not being there to protect her. However, there was nothing down there, no body, no blood. Steve shook his head and looked away, it wouldn’t do any good to dwell on those thoughts, he just had to get rid of the thing so he could go on his way to find Natasha before she goes to join him and Sam on the run.

\- Return the stone to its place. – Schmidt voice snapped him from his thoughts. – There is no sacrifice but the stone has a wisdom to it. The rule is clear: there must be a soul for a soul.

Steve frowned in confusion but decided not to ask further questions, his patience running low with that whole interaction. So he just throws the stone away carelessly and looked down wishing for it to crash onto the floor and be shattered into pieces; he doesn’t remember hating an object so much ever before like he hated that stone. However, he didn’t come to see if the stone hits the floor or not, or anything else really, his mind shutting down suddenly and darkness engulfing him.

Steve opened his eyes again a mere seconds later and frowned, not understand what had happened; he notices he was laying down in a puddle of water, so he sits and look to the sides trying to figure out where he was. It definitely wasn’t Vormir anymore but it looked familiar somehow, despise the queer empty look of it and the odd orange glow. He gets up and checks to see if his equipment were where they were supposed to be, then put the right coordinates to his next stop and when he was ready to hit the button and make another jump in time, the voice he missed so terribly the last few days reaches him.

\- Steve? What are you doing here? – Natasha’s voice comes from behind him and Steve turns around in a flash, his heart missing a beat upon seeing her again.

\- Nat. – he whispers walking some steps towards her ready to pull her into a hug but she backs away instantly. – Nat?

\- Did you died? – Natasha asked looking at him with a hint of desperation. – Did we lost again?

\- What? No. No. – He said trying to get closer again. – We won, Nat. We did it.

\- But did you died? – She insisted, this time allowing him to get closer.

\- No… I… Nat, what’s wrong? – Steve wasn’t liking it, something about her was off.

\- How are you here if you’re not dead then? It’s the soul stone, Steve, some souls come here when they die.

 _Wait a second, what?!_ Steve thought alarmed. Last thing he remembers is looking to the stone falling down, then nothing, he surely didn’t tripped over the cliff. Did Schmidt attacked him? Steve think it unlikely too.

\- No, Nat, I’m not dead. – _Though it wouldn’t be so bad to be since you’re here,_ he completed in his mind.

\- Then you’re not a shadow? You’re really real? – She chuckled looking him up and down.

\- Why would I be a shadow?

\- The others are just shadows to me… Or we’re all just shadows. – She frowned in thought. – I didn’t figure it out yet.

\- I’m not a shadow or whatever. I am real and I am here. – Steve said with sure and held out his hands for her to touch.

\- Are you sure, soldier? – Natasha asked still suspicious but her lips curved up a little in her trademark smirk.

\- Yes, Natasha, I’m sure.

\- So what are you’re doing here? – She insisted with her eyebrows arched. – Thought it would be a good idea to disrupt my peace?

Steve opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came. He could say a thousand things to her now, how much he missed her, how unfair her death was, how he seemed to not know how to live without her, how he stupidly realized too late how much he loved her, how in love he was with her, so on and so on. But he settled for the biggest reason of them all of why he couldn’t let go of her.

\- I didn’t wanted you to be alone. – Not yet, not for many years to come, not while they had so much story to live; Steve just couldn’t leave her.

Natasha smiled, a toothy and genuine smile, and Steve’s heart almost stopped again. She finally reachs out for him. Natasha puts her hands on Steve's hands, gladly to really feel his skin but before they could say or do anything, a bright light blinded them and Natasha felt an intense pull in her body. Then they were back in Vormir; Natasha looking alarmed and lost, her breathing a little irregular. Steve pulled her into a hug, holding her like his life depended on it and breathing in on her smell.

\- You’re back. – He whispered at the verge of tears. – _You’re back._

\- How did you do that? – She whispered on his neck.

\- Does it matter? – Steve was way too occupied with being consumed by the feelings of having her back in his life to care for anything else. The only thing he wanted was to keep Natasha there with him and not let go of her ever again.

Natasha smiled and hugged him tighter. No, in the end it didn’t really matter the hows and whys; they had won and saved trillions of lives, and Steve had come back for her. Whatever happened and why it happened didn’t matter. They were both here. They were _alive_. They were _together._ That’s all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you guys like it ? Leave kudos or comments to let me know pls :D
> 
> I didnt start my AUs fixit fics readings yet , so idk if anyone used that explanation here already. But thats the main especulation/theory going on around tumblr&tt and makes a lot of sense so i decided to use it too.
> 
> Maybe I'll write a part 2 cause i got some ideas of what they did next. Not sure yet though.
> 
> Anyways... Hope you guys liked it, let me know if you did.
> 
> Thanks for reading !!!


End file.
